A BRIEF OF THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: CHANGING SCHOOLS FROM THE INSIDE OUT

BY BRYAN GOODWIN - McREL INTERNATIONAL

Goodwin asserts in his introduction, Significant reform efforts - the standards-based education movement, the
passage of No Child Left Behind, the Common Core - have come with plenty of good intentions, chief among
them to focus the entire system on the successes of all students. And yet our current path of reform has had
numerous unintended consequences (p. 1). Principally among the unintended consequences are stress-ridden
teachers, teachers and principals exiting the profession in mass, a carrot and stick mentality vis a vis a teacher
evaluation process predicated on assessment data, and the erosion of student curiosity, motivation and
intrinsic motivation for learning. Therefore, Goodwin argues in favor of moving the locus of reform away from
a top-down orientation to beginning reform from a building-centered, inside-out approach.
In a domestic and international perspective, our current education approach is not working. Goodwin cites
2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data with our country being surpassed by other
nations, increasing our proportion of lower-performing and top-performing students (p. 1). To address this
education crisis, Goodwin advocates on behalf of putting student engagement, motivation, and true problemsolving abilities at the heart of everything we do (p. 3). Spurring this demeanor in our students can be
achieved through reshaping how we structure our lessons. Teachers, according to Goodwin, should develop
adaptive challenges where the solution to a problem may not be clear from the onset, but through seeking
solutions to teacher and student-driven questions, meaningful learning will be achieved.
Teachers have the largest stake in the inside-out change movement. Goodwin advocates for teachers and
school leaders to work by failing forward. Failures should be perceived as opportunities for growth through
learning. Much like teachers who encourage student curiosity by asking good questions, principals guide
school teams through adaptive challenges by asking questions that prompt professional self-reflection and
collaboration (p. 4). This process is difficult due to not being prescriptive, or paint by number. Therefore,
principals must develop precision without prescription (p. 4).
According to Goodwin, for schools to work in an inside-out approach, they must do seven things: develop
shared understanding about the moral purpose of schooling, put curiosity, engagement and motivation at the
center of schooling, build on bright spots and strengths, develop leaders as change agents (including teacher
leaders), fail forward, re-discover peer coaching, and reframe the goal away from assessing every student to
using a sampling method for assessment. Goodwin proclaims that the natural benefit of moving away from
top-down approaches is the benefit of school systems to redirect some of their energies from monitoring and
compliance tasks to building teacher capacity and providing supports for students and their families (p. 9).
Goodwins report can be accessed at https://www.mcrel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/
Road_Less_Traveled_Dec2015_web.pdf

BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION.

President and CEO - McREL International (Oct. 2014-Present), Chief Operating Officer - McREL
International (May 1998-Sept. 2014), Reporter - Central Business Journal (Sept. 1996-May 1998), Instructor - The Good Hope School (Aug. 1994-June
1996). PUBLICATIONS. Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success (ASCD, Sept. 2011), The Twelve
Touchstones to Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day (ASCD, 2013), Balanced Leadership for Powerful Learning: Tools for
Achieving Success in Your School (ASCD, 2015). University of Virginia - Communications (M.A. - 1993-1994), Baylor University - English/Professional
Writing (B.A. - 1988-1992).
Prepared by Matthew J. Dailey, Galileo Institute Research Assistant; Goodwin, B. (2015). The road less traveled: Changing schools from the

inside out. Denver, CO: McREL International.